Utility to Deliver Bills for Viewing and Payment Providing Customers with
Convenience and Enhanced Customer Care
BOSTON, March 24 /PRNewswire/ -- edocs, the leading provider of Internet
billing software solutions announced that Boston Edison (NYSE: BSE) has
launched its online bill presentment and payment service through edocs'
BillDirect solution. The service is geared toward their residential,
commercial and industrial customers in eastern Massachusetts. These customers
represent over 1 million bills per month. Boston Edison's customers will have
the choice to view and pay their bills directly from Boston Edison's corporate
website or through CheckFree's (Nasdaq: CKFR) site at
mybills.com.
"We are excited that Boston Edison selected edocs' BillDirect to meet
their critical business objective of being the first electric utility in the
industry with an electronic bill presentment and payment solution utilizing a
direct and consolidator presentment and payment model. This service allows
Boston Edison to leverage the Internet to make the billing process more cost
effective and convenient for its customers. A Boston Edison customer can now
view and pay their bill from either the Boston Edison website or from a
consolidator site such as CheckFree," stated Jim Moran, SVP of Sales &
Marketing at edocs. "Initial reaction from Boston Edison's customer base has
been quite positive and we hope to assist them with unique targeted and one-
to-one demand marketing initiatives to acquire and convert their customers to
this convenient, interactive service."
"In an era of utility deregulation, Boston Edison recognized that we had
to be more innovative and provide our customers with a value-added service
that would differentiate us in the marketplace. We focused on EBPP as an
essential piece of our competitive strategy. That is why, after an extensive
search we chose edocs' BillDirect solution," stated Fred Grimshaw, Manager of
Billing Operations at Boston Edison. Boston Edison customers have the ability
to review detailed information online regarding their monthly bills. The
electronic bills are presented in color, complete with the appropriate
graphics, branding and summary billing detail. By placing their bills online
via BillDirect, Boston Edison is leveraging their brand identity in order to
strengthen customer relationships in an ever-changing medium.
"One thing that concerned us at Boston Edison was the complexity of
installing an electronic commerce system. One of the major components in our
evaluation of EBPP solutions was the level of support we received. edocs'
customer support has been great ... any technical problem was addressed and
rectified in less than 48 hours. BillDirect has a sub-second response time to
our millions of customer bills," said Harry Markopoulos, IT Manager, Boston
Edison.
Other key Boston Edison selection criteria that BillDirect satisfied
included scalability and the ability to interface with Boston Edison's
customer care system. Boston Edison's customer care system utilizes
BillDirect's e-care API by providing customer service representatives with
immediate access to a customer's bill in a dynamic HTML format. "This type of
seamless systems integration is a perfect example of how edocs has helped us
to exceed our customers' expectations," stated David Samuel, Vice President of
Customer Care at Boston Edison.
About edocs
edocs' BillDirect solution enables companies to leverage the Internet for
the billing process in order to deepen customer relationships and dramatically
reduce the costs associated with bill delivery and remittance processing.
BillDirect includes a complete rapid application development and deployment
environment for EBPP applications, making it easy for billers to deploy and
manage EBPP solutions that deliver personalized, interactive bills, statements
and invoices through the biller's own Web site or through Internet billing
service providers. With BillDirect, billers, financial institutions and
financial service organizations can leverage their billing content to improve
customer care and launch targeted marketing programs, while also reducing
print, postage and remittance processing costs. For more information about
edocs, visit our web site at edocs.com . edocs, people, product and
partners.
About Boston Edison
Boston Edison is a leading electric utility company serving customers in
the eastern part of Massachusetts since 1886. With a customer base of
approximately 670,000 and annual revenues exceeding $1.6 billion, Boston
Edison continuously strives to bring the benefits of a newly restructured
industry to our customers. For more information about Boston Edison, visit
our website at bostonedison.com.
SOURCE edocs
Web Site: https: //www.mybills.com/ebill
Web Site: edocs.com |
